"Ms. Bunny," said the judge, peering at her over his reading glasses, "what precisely are your qualifications for representing the accused?"

Lola flipped her ears back. "I've seen Legally Blonde a dozen times. That's almost twenty, y'know. It's, like, my favourite movie? Reese Witherspoon is awesome. So yeah, I'm totally up on all this law stuff. That robe is so you."

The judge pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes well. Given that no one else is either willing or available to represent your clients, I suppose you'll have to do. Probably still better than some legal aid attorneys I've dealt with."

"Kewl. Thanks, Judgie."

"That's 'Your Honour' to you, young lady."

"Right, right. Sorry, Your Highness."

"That's--! Never mind." The judge turned around and surreptitiously took a swig from his hip flask. "Will the D.A. kindly call his first witness."

Bosko, sitting at the defense table with the other toons, buried his head in his hands. "Me o my," he said under his breath. "We's so futzed up."

After the D.A. had finished questioning Ned, Lola stepped forward to cross-examine him.

"So-o-o," said Lola, arms folded behind her as she paced back and forth in front of Ned. "Can you, like, state your name?"

"Ms Bunny," said the judge, facepalming. "We've already established the witness's name."

"Yah well, I kinda forgot it. I was texting when he was first called, y'see, and--"

"MS. Bunny. Kindly stop wasting the court's time and move on with Mr. Flanders's cross-examination, or I'll find you in contempt."

"I--I'm sorry, Judgi--Your Honour. Geez, what a grouch, amirite? God, what crawled up his--?" Lola cleared her throat. "Uh, yeah, so Mr. Flanders--if that is your real name--do you recall how long was the short made by Bugs's company--hiiii, Bun-Bun!" She turned and waved to...nowhere in particular. "Lookit, I'm on TV!"

The judge snapped his gavel in half. "MS. Bunny. This trial. Is not. Being. Filmed."

Lola spun around to look at him. "It's not? Then how's it going to be on TV?"

After sentencing her to a night in prison for contempt, the judge bid Lola continue. She asked Ned the question again.

"Well, ma'am," said Ned, "as I recall, it was seven minutes, thirty-four seconds."

"I see," said Lola, glancing nervously back at the judge every so often. "Doesn't sound like a very short short, does it now? Sounds like a long short to me. Almost as if they should call it a 'long.'"

"I--what do you mean?"

The hare slammed her palms down on the witness stand. "I'M ASKING THE QUESTIONS HERE. Now, if you can't tell me whether the short is a short or a long, is it possible you weren't, like, completely aware of what you were seeing?"

"Miss, I was aware of what I saw."

"Were you? May I remind you that you swore an oath on that...book with...God and stuff in it. Isn't it possible you were, like, drunk or on the weed?"

"Wha--? No! I don't drink or do drugs."

"I see." Lola stroked her chin and twitched her ears. "Then is it possible you, and possibly all those accused as well, were under mind control by an evil witch, like--that one?"

Everyone turned to look at Witch Hazel, who was in the public seating area.

The judge hammered his gavel. "Ms. Bunny, so help me God, if you persist in making a mockery of these proceedings, I'll have no choice but to--"

"IT'S TRUE! It's all true! EE-HEE-HEE-HEE-HEEEE!" said Witch Hazel, standing up, dislodging several hairpins in the process. "I master-minded the whole thing. When Bugs passed me over for the role of Evil Queen in 'S No Right, in favour of that upstart Witch Lezah, I swore I'd make him take a loss on that cartoon. So I flew to Springfield and cast a spell on Flanders here, to make him round up a bunch of protesters. Then I flew back to Hollywood and cast a (slightly smaller) spell on Daffy, Sam and Jacque, to inflame them into striking back. And I'd do it again! EE-HEE-HEE-HEEEE!"

Once again, the gavel came down as the courtroom erupted in a sussuruss of whispers. When it was quiet, the judge asked her how it was that Bosko and Good Cyndi had come to be arrested and charged as well.

Witch Hazel shrugged. "I do remember they were standing nearby when I cast that second spell. And, this being Hollywood, there were an awful lot of pocket-mirrors about. Maybe the spell ricocheted off a couple and struck them."

"That would explain why I don't remember anything from that night," said Cyndi.

"...Gym Bunny," said Bugs. "I figger it's been a while since I've starred in a theatrical short, so I wrote this one for meself. You play a small biznesswoman whose gym's facin' demolition by Yosemite Sam, who plays an evil industrial baron. So I help ya foil his schemes, an' our characters get wit' each udda at the end. 'Cause I'm, y'know, the Gym Bunny."

"Uh, Bugs?" said Good Cyndi.

"Hold on, hold yer horses. Now there's this one scene near the climax I think you'll really like. It's where Sam's goin' through the gym lookin' fer me, an' then I, as the Gym Bunny, come outta the closet--"

"Bugs--"

"An' I'm about to get the jump on him, see, when Mac an' Tosh, the Goofy Gophers, pop out from behind the epileptical trainer an' Mac says, 'Ah, hullo, Gym Bunny! Would you care to join us as we go cruising?' An' Tosh says, 'Oh, that'd be ever so delightful. That splendid fellow, now what's his name, the chicken hawk--"

"BUGS!"

"All right, lady. What is it, already? Geez."

"Bugs," said Cyndi, palms out. "Do you know what the term gym bunny even means?"

"Sure. A rabbit what's inta physical fitness, right?"

Cyndi shook her head, then told him.

"...Oh. Aheh." Bugs blushed through his fur. "Okay, well, we can still go with the script, just ah, we'll change the title an' maybe make my gym shorts a little less...tight. Yeh."

While that was going on, Jack had an important thing to ask Katy-Ann, and that thing was...

Yes, readers, Jack had finally grown a pair and proposed to Katy-Ann. Their ceremony would be taking place in just over a month's time, in Eden, and--waaaaait a minute, "red" or "blue?"

What's going on here? Had Jack fallen on his head? Was he keen on a Matrix theme for the wedding? Was it the first thing, leading directly to the second?

The answer is: none of the above. For you see, all the standard black tuxedos, in the tri-county area surrounding and including Belleville, had been bought or rented. The occasion? It was the gala tribute ceremony for...

...billionaire comics legend T Campbell, world-renowned for such works as the long-running webcomics The Versus Verses and Exploding Stills, and most of all his OEL yaoi manga, Penn and Agustin. It all started when, as a fledgling writer, he gave his career a boost by travelling back to 1963, preventing JFK's assassination, and using the hero's spotlight to plug his comics.

The tribute, inconveniently for Jack, was to be the same night as the wedding, hence the lack of available tuxes. Ah well. (By the way, Katy-Ann recommended the blue tux as the less gaudy of the two options.)

As for Penn and Agustin, it had proven so critically and commercially successful as a manga, anime, and visual novel, that it was now a live-action series in its sixth season on The CW.

"I'm totally not buying this pairing," said Aggie, Penny's head in her lap, as they watched the end credits of the latest episode roll, in the dorm common room. "The writers just shmooshed Agustenn together this season with no buildup. Hell, I have a hard time believing Penn's even into guys. He was all about Rachel, the badass beach volleyballer, in the second and fourth seasons."

"Yeah," said Sara, nestled against the visiting Tiff in the easy chair beside them. "And they have no chemistry. Every scene with the two of them is just...awkward. It's like the show is just pandering to the shippers."

"Who cares?" said Penny. "Penn and Agustin are hot. That, and the shirtless makeout scenes, are what's important."

"Got that right," said Tiff, leaning over to high-five Penny, missing, and falling on her face. "Ow."

...were in the path of a magickal lab experiment, at our school, gone badly wrong (totally wasn't mine, why would you think that?), and now they've switched species."

"So," said Aggie, rocking the napping RN in the cradle next to her, "Brooke's mind is now in Layla's body, and vice versa?"

"No," said Tiff. "Not bodies. Species. And so Brooke still looks kinda like herself, only she's a vampire. And Layla still looks kinda like herself, but she's now a melusine."

"Eesh. How are they taking it?" said Sara.

"'Bout as well as you'd expect. Which has absolutely nothing to do with why I'm spending the night here instead of back on my campus. Nothing whatsoever."

"Stupid Winters," said Layla, in line at the cafeteria of Diana College for Monsters and Monster Hunters. "Some best friend. Now that I've gone all Serpentor, I gotta eat stupid mice and crap."

"W...ell, you don't have to," said Brooke, behind her. "I'm a vegetarian, remember. Or at least I was. Now, it's either consume blood, or starve. And no offence, but the latter option is awfully tempting. Why can't all vampires be like your sister? I'd much rather live on chocolate."

"Aaah, you don't know what you're missing. And neither does Nina. Well, except that one time, but she doesn't like to talk about it. And Blair gets...uncharacteristically spooked when it comes up."

"Yeah well." Brooke had no idea what Layla was on about, which, given that she was Nina's best non-pervy-doll friend, was just as well. "I guess until Dr. Frawnkensteen in Potions figures out a way to turn us back, we'll both just have to adju--"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU'RE OUT OF VEGGIE ENTREES AND YOU ONLY HAVE GERBIL CASSEROLE?" Layla, now at the front of the line, was yelling at the server, a middle-aged, sour-faced drow in a hairnet. "Haaah. Fine. Gimme a blood pudding."

"Blood puddings are for vampires and chupacabras only," said the drow.

"I am a vampire, you little runt of a--"

The drow ignored the slur, but memorized Layla's face so he'd remember whose food to spit in next time. "You're not a vampire, girlie. You're clearly a melusine. Want some hamster sauce on that casserole?"

"AAAAAARGH!" Layla ran off, leaving Brooke to shrug at the server.

"Blood pudding, please," said Brooke. "Ugh."

"I'm sorry, Ms. Lynn, Ms. Delacroix," said Dr. Frawnkensteen in his office later that afternoon. "I don't have the antidote ready yet. Take another...I'd say about three to five weeks for all the ingredients to arrive from the various Hell-pits and dimensions."

"Three to five weeks?!" said both students. In response to which, the instructor (who was a post-doc in Alchemical Studies) could only smile and spread out his hands, palms up.

"No way am I going that long without delicious, delicious blood," said Layla as the two of them headed down the corridor to the exit. "There's gotta be some other...Hey! What about the Thunderbolt Trickster?"

"You think she could help us any faster?" said Brooke.

"Worth a try, isn't it? Besides." Layla half-grinned and nudged her with her elbow. "Didn't you once have a fling with her? Maybe she's ready for a little wampir whoopie, huh? Especially if you're the sort who likes to play with her food--OW!" She rubbed her neck where Brooke had just clawed her.

"I've told you not to slut-shame me for being bi, Delacroix. And besides, Lisa's married now. But yeah, maybe she can help."

Lisa, appearing in their dorm lounge via holographic projection, nodded as the two monsters told their tale of woe and squick. "Mm hm. Mm hm. Uh huh. Hmmm. Yeah, I think I know just the thing to switch you back. I'll need...

Lisa's holographic image rolled her holographic eyes. "If I may continue? I need to get right up inside your auras. This will not be a sexual thing--try not to look too disappointed, ladies--but it may make you feel uncomfortable in a less viscerally squicky way."

Layla sighed. "Hey, you're the super-mage. And what do you mean, 'ladies,' ahahaha? So whatever it takes, I guess."

"Oookay then," said Lisa, apparating bodily in front of them. "Let's do this. Better if we proceed to your room, Brooke, for privacy."

Once in Brooke's room, Lisa had the two of them lie silently on the beds and try to relax. Next, she toon-stretched her arms out such that she could lay her hands on both their foreheads at the same time. She closed her eyes and concentrated, and then, once inside their auras, somehow simultaneously, she...

Rebhel wrote:I happen to like Lisa BECAUSE of the way she speaks. If you don't get her, oh well... you are the one missing out.

This proved a challenge, as one aura was in the form of a vampire bat and the other in the form of a cobra. Both, at this deep and archetypal level, were feral and not especially inclined to obey an unfamiliar, foreign spider-haired entity presuming to act as a traffic cop.

"Okay," said Lisa, willing herself not to show fear, "let's take it easy now. Bat-Bat, you know you don't belong in Brooke's body. Snakey, you know you don't belong in Layla's body. So let's just sliiiiiiide over your proper body, niiiiice and easy; everyone's happ--AAAA!"

She yanked the cobra off her leg before her fangs could dig in any deeper. "Now listen. You can't stay in the bodies you're in now, and that's that. Jesus, my twelve-year-old students are better behaved than--niiice try." She ducked and dodged bites from both of them, then backed away several paces. "I'll be with you chicas in a sec. Talk amongst yourselves. Here's a topic: Doctor Octopus was neither a doctor nor an octopus. Discuss."

Okay, Trickster, she thought to herself as the rogue auras blinked at her in confusion. Use your smexy little head. If you can't persuade or order them back into their proper bodies, you'll have to trick them. But how?... AHA! I have it.

Cracking her knuckles, Lisa assumed her archetypal coyote form, sauntered confidently over to the bat and cobra, and she...

...cast a love spell on them. This caused the auras to instinctively rush toward what they thought were each other's bodies, but were in fact each one's proper body. Lisa then cast a binding spell on both to keep them there, and then undid the love spell. Then she returned into her own body and, exhausted, sunk to the floor of Brooke's room and slept.

"You cast a love spell on them?" said Luna to Lisa later that day, back in their quarters at WUSSUP.

Lisa scratched the back of her head. "Yeah, I know, not normally the ethical thing to do. But I was desperate. Those were some stubborn-ass auras. And bitey, too. Eegh."

Luna cringed in empathy. "Well, all right. Tell me you at least remembered to undo the spell."

"I totes did. C'mon. My only concern is that sometimes with reversed love spells there are traces of emotional residue left behind. But I doubt that'll mean anything in this case. Those two chicas are at best grudgingly civil to each other. At best."

Meanwhile, back at Diana College, a knock came on Layla's door. Slowly and with considerable effort, she lifted her re-vampired body from the bed and called "Who is it?" in a faint voice.

"...You called me Brooke. Not 'Serpentor' or 'Slithery' or some dumb name like that."

"Heh. So I did... well... Well, c'mon." She took her arm. "You waiting for a special invitation or something?"

Ten minutes later, Tiffany, her night bag in hand, was back on campus and about to knock on the door of the room she shared with Brooke, when she heard a distinct moaning of Layla's name, followed by Brooke's. And as even Tiff could deduce what was going on, she lowered her hand and, with a bit of a blush herself, headed for the student lounge.

Over at 3Bad, Aggie was picking RN up from the campus daycare, when she spotted him...

Rebhel wrote:I happen to like Lisa BECAUSE of the way she speaks. If you don't get her, oh well... you are the one missing out.

"How...how long has he been doing this?" Aggie said to Dell Irium, the supervisor.

"He just started this afternoon," said Dell, in the same tone you or I might mention that our uncle had switched accountants. "Shows promise, don't you think? To be sure, the scribbles don't have any sort of design or form, but that's to be expected since RN's only five months--"

"Yes, yes, but how is he even doing that? I thought the campus was magic-proof."

"Technically, we're across the street from the campus, so I suppose that's past the anti-magic-tech boundary."

"I suppose so," said Aggie, her head spinning.

"A magical boy," said Penny later that afternoon back in the dorm, shaking her head as she changed RN's diaper. "I feel like I'm living in an anime."

"Wouldn't that be magical girl?" said Aggie, taking the soiled diaper from her wife and tossing it.

"Whatever. But since this is real life and not fiction, there's still the question of why RN has these powers when there are no magical artifacts in the daycare centre (even in Dell Weirdium's office; I checked) and neither you, nor anyone in your family is a magic-user."

Aggie thought for a moment as she washed her hands. "You're forgetting that he has more than one, um, biological parent."

Penny's eyes widened. She hastened to put a fresh diaper on RN's bum and to wash her hands so that she could facepalm properly. "Lisa. Temporarily gender-changed fu...frigging Lisa. I should've known. We just had to go with her as the father, didn't we?"

Aggie propped RN up with some pillows and gave him his favourite rattle, which was shaped like a peace symbol. (His other favourite rattle looked like a Mercedes.) "You're forgetting, Pen, that Future Grown-up RN told us Lisa'd be his father via belt of gender-change, and that because of John's and Demi's time-tinkering gone awry, the whole artificial insemination / pregnancy / labour thing was a done deal before we knew it."

Penny's mouth twisted and she shrugged. "True enough. Can't fight fate, I suppose. And although magic--not just Lisa's but anybody's--is something I generally find unreliable and annoying and would rather not have to deal with, RN is our son and I'm gonna love the hell--heck outta him, no matter what."

"That's my girl." Aggie kissed Penny and they sat on the floor watching their child.

After a minute, Penny had a thought. "That said, while he may be able to do magicstuff in daycare, here on campus proper I could see him getting awful frustrated and cranky when he tries to do his thing but finds he can't."

"Good point," said Aggie. "Let's ask Lisa for advice."

Once Lisa, on Skype with the two of them, had finished alternating between squeeing with paternal pride and pointing-and-laughing at Penny and going, "Burn! BURRRRN!" (at which Penny nearly logged them out before Aggie stopped her), they posed their question.

"The anti-magic safeguards?" said Lisa. "Yeah, about those--remember that run-in Hekate had with you when she was looking for me? Well, campus security caught it all on camera, doy, and after hella--hecka debate within the administration, they decided that if a relatively minor deity could crack the safeguards, any sufficiently-powered entity could do so. Also, they figured that it'd been years since that incident with the fundies trying to zap you 3Bad folks straight (and it didn't work, anyway), so it was time to drop the magic-away-going thingies. They've been dismantled just over a month, now."

"Hollllld up there, Pennywise. Don't get your knickers in a knot, as Luna would say. When the 3Bad dean duly let me and other big magic machers know of the change in policy--as a matter of courtesy--they also told us this change was on a strict need-to-know basis only. Besides, I figured you, if not Ag, would appreciate my continuing to stay out of your hair in between vacations."

Penny had to chuckle. "Can't argue with that. But now it turns out we have a magical kid--"

"I figured it was only fair as your friend I let you in on it, yeah. Still, tempting as I'm sure it'd be to show RN's (eventual) bag o' tricks off to your dormmates, it's probably best for you to keep the magic thing quiet, too. And to that end, I suggest you...

It was January 20, and a citrus-coloured man with a bad hairpiece was placing his hand on a Bible at the Capitol's West Front. He said, "I do solemnly sw--"

"STOP THE INAUGURATION!" cried the Thunderbolt Trickster, coming in for a landing beside the podium. FBI Agent Pat McBell, wearing a jetpack, touched down beside her.

"What is the meaning of this?" said Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr, nearly dropping the Bible.

Lisa held up a flash drive. "I have here over 30 hours of accidentally self-recorded video of negotiations between the President-Elect and Vladimir Putin in which the former agreed, upon assuming office, to the immediate annexation of the United States of America by Russia."

A sussuruss erupted from the crowd watching the event. Lisa whistled a sonic blast to shut everyone up. She held up a sheaf of papers. "And here--zoom in good on this, camera boys--is the annexation agreement itself, signed by His Orangeness and His Queer-Bashingness themselves.

"And that's not all. Here, on the big-screen monitor I've just co-opted, we see the President-Elect grabbing puss--"

"EWWWWW!" said the crowd as one.

"Didn't your parents tell you not to interrupt? Here, if you actually look at the monitor, you'll see him grabbing pussycats by the handful from a shelter he's broken into, and putting them in a Cruella Inc. corporate truck. The purpose? To make illegal coats and stoles for his daughter whom, as you can see in this next video, he even more illegally wed in a private offshore ceremony. Now you can all 'EWWWWW!'"

Instead, the crowd just stared, mouths open, eyes bulging.

"Finally, although my joint investigation with the Feds is still underway to uncover even more shi--stuff, for now here are memos to NASA ordering them to build a wall around Earth to keep the sun out so everyone will have to use his company's brand of solar lamps."

The audience pulled torches and pitchforks out of nowhere and began to chant "Make America the Way It Was Before This Guy Came Along!"

"And now, Agent McBell," she said, turning to her colleague, "I have a question for you. Are you man enough to arrest the President? And oh yeah, his V.P., would-be cabinet, advisors, corporate execs, immediate relatives--they're all in on this."

"Yes, I am," said the Fed, pulling out handcuffs to cheers from the crowd, which drowned out the arrestee's pleas of "This is all a yuge mistake!" and "This is a Muslim Latino Jewish Black Nasty Woman conspiracy!"

"Ms. Winklemeyer," said a reporter at the White House press conference that followed. "There's just one thing we don't understand. Who was your informant? Who is Deep Heart?"

"Glaaaaaaaad you asked," said Lisa. She turned and gestured to the drapes. "C'mon out here, Fred."

A smiling man in a light blue shirt, blue tie, yellow cardigan and comfy shoes came to the podium, to gasps and then wild cheers and tears of joy. "Hello, neighbours," he said.

"But Mr. Rogers," said another reporter after everyone had quieted down. "We--we all thought you were dead. For years."

"And so I was, neighbour. But as a result of viral videos on YouTube, including the 1969 one in which I successfully lobbied the Senate for PBS funding so shows like mine could continue making children believe in themselves, it seems I became a symbol of kindness, love and basic decency. Even on 4chan. And your collective love for me brought me back to life. I was going to revive my show, but a message came from Above instructing me to disguise myself and infiltrate the inner echelons of the man who just narrowly missed becoming our President. Well, neighbour, that's exactly what I did."

And so it was--given that the candidate with the next highest electoral college vote declined the office for personal reasons--a new election was called. Mr. Rogers, running on the Good Neighbour Party ticket, won by a landslide. Lisa went on to serve as Secretary of the newly-created Department of Super-Powers and Magic.

Penny, Aggie, Sara and their friends all went on to successful careers in their chosen fields. Even Evil Cyndi, after a personal visit from President Rogers, agreed to undergo niceness surgery and later got a job running a national network of suicide hotlines (prevention, not...the other thing).

Yes, it was happy times indeed for the CtSverse, because it's a weird place where anything can happen and doesn't have to follow the rules of what we've all come to accept as reality. And so, our sentence is--complete.